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If you’ve been to a family gathering or book-club meeting and noticed to-go containers in the
kitchen, you’ve seen evidence of a trend that could be good news for the restaurant
industry.Consumer visits to restaurants are expected to fall slightly next year, so some are
counting on catering to help keep sales growing.

Restaurants already are grabbing a large share of the consumer catering business — $19.3 billion
compared with $4 billion for retailers such as grocery stores, according to Technomic, the Chicago
food and restaurant research firm.

“Improvements in food quality, especially at fast-casual and fast-food chains, appear to be a
significant factor in restaurants’ recent gains with catering consumers,” said Melissa Wilson,
director of Technomic’s “Parties Off Premise” study.

Yet for most restaurants, catering brings in only a sliver of sales. Growing that sliver
represents a “substantial opportunity for restaurants,” according to the Technomic study.

At Bob Evans Farms, catering and carryout sales from its restaurants are growing at about 10
percent each year, said Matt Harsh, senior director of emerging channels for the Columbus-based
company. That compares with a revenue drop — small, at less than

1 percent in fiscal 2012 — for meals served at the chain of family restaurants.

The food is ordered from and delivered by a local Bob Evans restaurant, but restaurant staff
does not serve the food. The company also offers lunch and dinner packages, which include
disposable plates, bowls, eating utensils and napkins upon request.

Meanwhile, fast-casual restaurants such as Qdoba Mexican Grill are poised to have their catering
sales grow 12 percent during the next three years, the highest growth for any restaurant type, the
Technomic study said. The annual consumer catering opportunity is $27.5 billion, Technomic
said.

Qdoba, for one, has developed a sizable catering offering, which includes taco, nacho and naked
burrito (typical burrito fixings without the tortillas) bars, which are served hot, as well as
boxed lunches, which are served cold.

The hot food comes with warming stands, as well as plates, utensils and napkins, and costs
between $160 and $200 for each package that feeds at least 20 people. That’s between $8 and $10 per
person.

Customers of ezCater often comment to the online catering marketplace about the freshness of
Qdoba’s food. “And for good reason — even the guacamole is homemade and made daily,” according to a
blog sponsored by the Boston-based ezCater.

“We do bring in food from restaurants for meetings,” said Bonnie Riggs, restaurant analyst for
market-research firm NPD Group in Rosemont, Ill. “A lot of times, those are from fast-casual
restaurants.”

That makes sense. Although there has been little to no growth in the restaurant industry since
2007, sales at fast-casual concepts such as Qdoba, Chipotle Mexican Grill and Panera Bread have
grown considerably.

NPD measures the restaurant industry not in dollars, as the Technomic study does, but in visits.
Riggs expects restaurant visits to fall half a percentage point in 2013 after growing 1 percent
this year.

“It’s not that we’re not going to restaurants,” Riggs said. “We still made 61 billion visits to
restaurants in 2012.”